One of those albums that I always seem to forget about, and then it destroys me all over again when I remember how good it is. Immense, loud, noisy and cathartic. if you're into Celeste, Breach or even Cult of Luna then this is a must-listen. (Speaking of which, have you heard the new Celeste songs? Fucking Christ. Next level.)
One of the best hardcore bands of the 2000s. Unfortunately, their material beyond the "We All Failed" 7" is practically unavailable. The 2nd 7" and the posthumous LP were each limited to 100 copies. The music is mid-to-fast paced, heavy but never gratuitously so, and laced with a palpable sense of desperation and cynicism. My brother once described them as "a band that sounds like they all own huge stacks of records and listen to them all". High praise. Mandatory listening, as far as I'm concerned.
A 2006 compilation of Montreal noise artists. Some of it I can really dig, some of it... not so much. It's well worth a browse through though.
Evil, murky Death Metal from the deep South. I recently described this to somebody as "Incantation playing at the bottom of a chasm while you're standing at the top". That gets you in the ballpark but doesn't do justice to how good this is. FUCK OFF, TECHNICAL DEATH METAL! UGH! It's still fresh, so if you're into it, please go buy it from Profound Lore (it's cheap!) or elsewhere.
In the words of the composer:
Smokin' hot bluegrass played by a bunch of punk dudes from Milwaukee. Tons of great jams on here! Seriously, try to listen to a song like "Down on a Bender" without smiling. It's tough.
I recently discovered that this little slab of violence is commanding a surprisingly high price tag these days after being available in every distro known to man for a couple of years. Huh. Well, here's a real nice rip of it if you don't feel like getting bilked on the secondary market.
Raw and hateful Black Metal from Finland, played by the curator of the well-respected Northern Heritage label. How did it take until 2002 for a Black Metal record to be named Fist of the Northern Destroyer? I find this record to have a couple of slight misses on it, but "I Have Seen..." is a brilliant track to say the least. I really like that when you open the booklet for this CD, there's nothing but matte black staring back at you.
If you were coming of age in Canada in the mid-'90s, you might be rolling your eyes right now. You are excused. But before CanCon became an avenue for regurgitating 3-year old American trends, some pretty decent bands actually did benefit from it, and The Killjoys were one. Their debut, Starry, is a half-hour of picture-perfect powerpop. Nothing more nothing less. Check it out! At the very least, you get one perfect pop song.
Gloria Coates is a modern American composer, although she has been living in Euro-Land since the '70s. She is known particularly for her unique textures and liberal use of long string glissandos. Symphony no. 15, subtitled "Homage to Mozart", is shrouded in a mysterious sonic aura. Strings squeal and slide while brass and percussion add canonic figures and hint at a distant majesty. If you're into to ambient and drone music, you would be well served to check this out although it bears little direct resemblance to either. This is definitely one that might blow a few minds if given a chance, as it did to me.
400 Km north of Oslo, something has been brewing. Over the last several years an impressive body of Black Metal has emanated from Trondheim. Most of it is cold, distant, primitive, sad. Of these, Knokkelklang is by far my favorite. Others, like the excellent Celestial Bloodshed, are better produced and more traditional. Unfortunately one of the central figures of the community, Steingrim Torson, was gunned down last year. Apparently the circumstances surrounding the incident are pretty sketchy but I couldn't really tell you any more than that. One ought not listen to Black Metal for the drama that often surrounds it. Several releases are linked below in alphabetical order for your perusal.
A 2CD set that collects two releases by this DOOOOOOOOOM band from France. I think that I overrate this ever so slightly because they're fronted by a cute gal who makes adorable and incongruous artwork for the band (and for her other project Rainbow of Death). I'm into that. But me overrating them does not mean that they are overrated or by any means bad. If you're into 20-minute ultra-slow doom songs, this is for you.
Fucking BLISTERING political grind from Norway. I think that 625 or somebody was supposed to put this out on CD but it looks like that never happened, so I ripped the LP. The crowning achievement here is the 10+ minute "Klæbukrønikene" which spirals upwards to a jaw-dropping climax. Dude seriously wrote a 10 minute grind song that's great from start to finish. Who does that? If there is better grind currently being played by anybody anywhere, I am not aware of it.
Four original noise/drone/glitch pieces constructed out of samples culled from a sparse piano/electronics piece, followed by the source material. Heartily recommended.
Laddio Bolocko existed for a brief time in the late '90s and nobody really cared. Then No Quarter was good enough to reissue their collected works in 2003 and nobody really cared again. But it's good! Laddio Bolocko were a many-headed beast. They rocked, skronked, droned, noised and psyched out with the best of 'em and fit it all within a framework that successfully reconciled the diverse elements while remaining moderately accessible. They had members of the Dazzling Killmen and The Psychic Paramount, who were/are both great.
Brand new post-hardcore from D.C. that acknowledges their Dischord forerunners while borrowing from some of the more recent Richmond bands. It has a cool blown out production that I wasn't sure really fit the style at first but which won me over by the end. Members of Aghast, 1905 and Lotus Fucker for whatever that's worth to you. If you enjoy it, head on over to http://www.amorylucha.org/ and procure yourself a copy.
Well, that Harry Pussy record garnered a lot of downloads so here's Adris Hoyos' post - Harry Pussy project. Similar to HP, but noisier, more relentless, less structured and...with a fiddle? Yeah. Not for the weak.
A nice '90s Death Metal nugget from Finland. Other than a bunch of demos, this 1993 EP is Depravity's only legacy, and it is worth it. The production is a step up on many of their contemporaries, the songs are engaging, and the atmosphere is really gloomy without doing anything convoluted to achieve it.. The guitar solos are a big highlight for me on this one; they get downright soulful at times.
Here's the bonus 7" that came with the first run of that new Fucked Up singles collection. Band is still good, I don't care what you say.
Warzone Womyn are ex - Crucial Unit (sweet!) and pre - Slices. The keep their hardcore short, sharp and vicious. The Endless Blockade eschew their usual violent mayhem and present us with a 17 minute doom epic. Both sides are better than you might expect.
New Black Metal from Santa Cruz. Sounds like they're playing 30 yards away from you through a fog bank, atop a cliff overlooking the ocean.
Gene Clark of the Byrds and Doug Dillard of The Dillards came together to produce two brilliant LPs before going their separate ways. I greatly prefer 1968's "The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard & Clark" to 1969's "Through The Morning, Through The Night", but the latter is by no means lacking in great material. The backing band had 3 members of The Flying Burrito Brothers, which should give you some idea of what you're getting into. Of the early L.A. country rock stuff that I've heard (and I am by no means an expert), this is my favorite. Songs like "Out On the Side" and "The Radio Song" kill me every time.
Kind of an odd little EP here. Members of Evergreen and Cars Get Crushed play two sad, lilting country-tinged originals and... a Randy Newman cover? Yeah. It works for me.
Of all the Black Metal bands that came out of Norway in the '90s, I think Aeternus is the most underrated. In fact in over 10 years of jocking this band furiously, I cannot remember offhand anybody ever saying "Yeah, I've listened to that them!'. Aeternus does a lot of things and does them all well. There are distinct elements of black metal, death metal, doom, viking metal and folk music. Right now you're probably thinking "Dude, almost every band ever has claimed to mix a million styles, and they're all either lying or terrible". This is true. But all those bands weren't Aeternus. I can't think of a single band that really sounds like this. The drums are punishing, the vocals are commanding and fucking IMMENSE, and the writing displays a keenly developed sense of structure as well as an eloquent, mournful melodic slant. The only knock on it is the muddy Greighallen production that was par-for-the-course at this point. ...And So the Night Became in it's entirety is majestic and monolithic, and feels like a mere fraction of it's hour-long runtime.
A hardcore band from western Mass. They had a 7" on the excellent Clean Plate Records, 2 tracks on the "Live at Dead Air" comp 11" and a final LP that was never released. Somebody was kind enough to send me those songs and now I pass them along to you. The earlier material has elements of crust with a good dose of melody, whereas the later stuff begins to lean a little more in a Cursed direction.
Vicious hardcore featuring the guitarist from Deathreat and the vocalist from Cold Sweat. They tear through 11 songs in 12 minutes. The insert urges you to "PLAY FUCKING LOUD" because it is "NOT FUCKING BACKGROUND MUSIC".
